


96 days

by 100demons



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character of Color, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-17 10:18:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/550503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been ninety six days since she died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	96 days

_12 days_

The flowers smell sickly sweet, soft petals as cold as ice. They look bright enough-- red and pink with little flutters of white here and there and that’s all that really matters. Joan slams the fridge door shut, the sudden breeze of cold air blowing her hair away and walks toward the counter.   
  
“Fifteen ninety nine,” he says, worn and calloused hands cracking open a new roll of quarters. It’s outrageously overpriced but she doesn’t argue, instead handing over a crisp twenty with hardly a fold and the bouquet of roses. He takes the money and rolls up the flowers in faded white paper, expertly tucking the edges in and securing it with tape.   
  
Joan takes back the flowers, all wrapped in white, and a few petals flutter to the ground, drops of red on the dirty linoleum floor. Her hands are slick and clammy with sweat and she almost drops the bouquet but her fingers are like a vise, clamped tightly around the stems, knuckles whitening.  
  
Outside, it begins to snow.

_21 days_

  
The rice tastes like ashes, bitter and hard. She had washed it over and over again until the water turned clear, added fresh water, set the cooker on. This is her sixth batch. It’s the worst one yet.  
  
“You’ve reached the residence of Joan Watson. Please leave a message and I’ll try to get back to you.”  
  
“Joan, this is the fifth time your mother and I have been trying to reach you today. I know you haven’t left the apartment all day, you’ve turned off your phone and I know you have that hearing in a few days. At least pick up so that we know that--”  
  
She takes the spoon out of her mouth and throws it at the answering machine; it goes wide and hits the wall above it instead, splattering half-cooked rice everywhere.  
  
“--you’re...alright. Please, Joan.”  
  
Bile rises up in her throat and she heaves into the sink, chunks of burnt rice and stomach acid and water. Joan wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and closes her eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks.

_36 days_

It starts with a text.  
  
 _Dinner?_  
  
She doesn’t mean for it to go the way it did-- but she was drunk and he was warm and willing and the next morning she wakes up in tangled sheets and Ty’s arm around her. For half a moment Joan forgets when she is and the past month seems nothing but a long, long dream. Soon Ty would wake and they would have breakfast, she would steal the paper from him and he would retaliate by taking away her coffee and then...  
  
But that was _before_.  
  
She climbs out of the bed, hunts for her clothes and puts them back on, not particularly caring that her shirt is inside out and that she can’t find her underwear. She’s out of the door in less than a minute, socks stuffed in her jacket pocket and boots still half-on.   
  
It’s cold and she can feel yesterday’s grime coating her like a second skin; Joan breathes in and the cold air feels good, sharp and painful in her nose.  
  
She fishes her car keys out of her coat pocket and a crumpled bill. Five dollars-- not enough to buy anything nice, maybe a couple of daffodils and some baby’s breath. It’ll have to be enough.

_66 days_

Joan stretches her hands out-- her callouses are starting to fade away, stolen by the passage of time. No more scrubs littering her hamper, filling her dresser; no more surgical masks, the boxes of rubber gloves she hoarded in the closet are gone, and receipts for pawned stethoscopes litter the bottom of her purse. Her medical textbooks and journals and papers (including her certification proving she earned her MD) are all boxed up and sitting on the curb to be picked up by garbage truck tomorrow morning.   
  
Her callouses on her hands are --were-- the only things left. And now even they too are slowly disappearing; it has taken her almost thirteen years to become a doctor. Two months now, and it’s as if she’d never been one.  
  
A third of her life--  
  
gone.  
  
Joan clenches her hands into tight fists. Not gone-- she still remembers. She has to remember. It’s the only thing that keeps her going now, hurtling forward into the unknown.   
  
Starting tomorrow, she’s not Dr. Watson anymore--   
  
just  
  
Joan.

_96 days_

“Hello, Sherlock,” she says. “My name is Joan Watson and I’m your sober companion.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> writing this was like pulling teeth  
> lots of teeth


End file.
